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Contemporary Music Review, 1994, Vol. 10, Part 2, pp. 35-48
Reprints available directly from the publisher Photocopying
permitted by license only
9 1994 Harwood Academic Publishers GmbH Printed in Malaysia
Defining Timbre- Refining Timbre Denis Smal ley
Music Department, City University, London, UK
Timbre is defined as the attribution of spectromorphological
identity. Electroacoustic music experience, particularly acousmatic
music, questions the viability of a notion of timbre. Of primary
significance is the traditional linking of timbre to the source and
cause of a sound: the concept of source-cause texture is introduced
to define this link. The ambiguous relationship between pitch and
timbre indicates that timbre cannot be defined as that part of the
sound which is not pitch. Problems in establishing the existence of
sonic identities within the musical context, and of maintaining the
coherence of identities are discussed, opening up questions
relating to musical discourse. Two types of discourse -
transformational and typological - are defined, leading to the
notion of generic timbre. In a spectromorphological music where
defining identities becomes problematic it becomes impossible to
disentangle timbre from discourse: here the notion of timbre has a
limited viability.
KEY WORDS timbre, sources and causes, identity, registration,
discourse, typology, transformation.
Introduction
What is timbre? When is it meaningful to use the term? How
useful is a concept of timbre in the context of electroacoustic
music? Defining timbre is a hazardous operation. "Talking about t
imbre," says Philippe Manoury "is as delicate as talking about
taste" (1991). Moreover, timbre cannot easily be p inned down.
Claude Cadoz (1991) goes so far as to state that any discussion of
timbre provokes debate on the very nature of music, while
Jean-Baptiste Barri6re (1991) finds in timbre "the inevitable
breaking-point of every musical discussion and every composi-
tional confrontation. It represents opposed notions of music,
opposed aesthetic positions.'" Indeed, the book which includes
these writers is called Timbre, mdtaphore pour la composition. You
cannot get more all-embracing than that.
One trouble with timbre is that it existed before
electroacoustic music, and we therefore have to spend much time and
intellectual energy extending or combating notions which were not
necessarily designed for the music we make. A second trouble is
that we now know too much about timbre. It is one of those subjects
where the more you read and the more you have hands-on
compositional experience the more you know, but in the process you
become less able to grasp its essence.
Whose Timbre?
The third trouble is that timbre means different things to
different people. "Whose t imbre?" we might ask. For many
traditional musicians the oft-quoted definition of the American
National Standards Institute, in spite of its curious negativity,
has a certain validity:
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"that attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which a
listener can judge that two sounds similarly presented and having
the same loudness and pitch are dissimilar."
At least it implies the traditional, pervasive notion (however
technically incorrect it may be) of the instrumental note as
comprising a pitch with timbre, and it evokes the notion of a
source even if it is not specifically mentioned.
For the contemporary instrumental composer (I am thinking
particularly of spectral approaches to instrumental composition)
timbre is an extension of harmony, or vice versa. The composer uses
spectral analysis as a basis for conceptualising the relationship
between pitch and sound qualities, and attempts to negotiate fluent
border crossings between the two.
A third approach to timbre concerns the details of its
multidimensionality. Through research publications and through
electroacoustic compositional experi- ence we have become very
aware of the multiple variables which determine timbral identity.
And we have also become concerned to differentiate what is
acoustically present in sounds from what is psychoacoustically
pertinent. The maps presented by such aids as spectral analysis or
sonograms are one thing; finding a safe perceptual way through
these territories is another. The multidi- mensional complex is not
without problems. It can reveal to us the "what" of timbre, and
explain the "how," but that does not mean we can aurally separate
out the dimensions involved nor focus our ears on their details,
even though we are so sensitive to their minor behavioural changes.
In applying their awareness of multidimensional timbral features,
composers, aided and abetted by technology, are often absorbed with
concepts, methods and techniques: the listener's appre- hension of
timbral values cannot simply be equated with the launching of
multidimensional attributes by the composer.
This brings me to a fourth answer to the question, "whose
timbre?" The everyday language of qualitative description is
accessible to everyone. It is closely allied to the "matter" of
sound. Terms like bright/dull, compact/spread, hollow, dense, may
be vague, and vague they are destined to remain since they are
qualities, but they have the advantage of an immediate,
comprehensible identity and are therefore not to be scoffed at.
They are verbal signs that essential qualities have been
recognised.
Timbre and Source
Having invoked four attitudes to timbral perception I should now
hazard a preliminary definition. I have freely adapted a definition
by Michel Chion. 1
Timbre is a general, sonic physiognomy through which we identify
sounds as emanating from a source, whether that source be actual,
inferred or imagined.
Prior to the electroacoustic period music always involved
identifiable sources. The listener could spontaneously link sound
both to a sounding body and a human,
1 (Chion 1986: 7):."... le timbre, n'~tant rien d'autre, en
effet, que la physionomie g~n~rale qui nous fait identifier un son
comme 4manant d'un instrument d~termin~ ou (plus g6n~ralement)
d'une source d6terminG qui peut ~tre imagin4e ou imaginaire."
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Defining Timbre - Refining Timbre 37
physical cause. Gesture not only activated the source but could,
through breathing and bow control, and techniques of touch,
maintain and continue the sounding of the vibratory system.
Traditionally, therefore, there is an inherent, culturally
imbedded, stable source bonding in music. Source bonding is the
term I use to encapsulate
the natural tendency to relate sounds to supposed sources and
causes, and to relate sounds to each other because they appear to
have shared or associated origins.
All those attributes traditionally packaged under timbre - the
nuancing and articulation of note-objects and phrase-shapes, and
the control and variation of tone, including the
roughness/smoothness of note-grain - could be traced to
source-cause interactivity.
In electroacoustic music, however, sources and causes are many,
varied, evident or ambiguous, actual or implied, unknown or
unknowable: we can perhaps detect traces of cause or source but
realise that neither can exist in reality. In instrumental and
vocal music source and cause are known in advance of listening, but
in electroacoustic music they are unveiled by the composer and are
discovered (or not) by the listener in the course of the work, and
within that single work there may be a great variety of
source-cause shadings and strategies. One of the great interests in
electroacoustic music is the adventure of bonding play, which I
regard as an inherent perceptual activity. Listeners may share
source bondings when they listen to electroacoustic music, but they
may equally have different, personalised bondings including those
never intended or envisaged by the composer. Widely ranging
bondings are inevitable in musics which are not primarily weighted
towards fixed pitch-intervals and the instrumental note, and they
can occur in what might be considered the most abstract of
works.
If source and cause are unstable, illusory or non-existent does
this mean that my definition of timbre crumbles? It is certainly
too restrictive because apprehending source and cause is not the
only identification strategy. Source bonding is extrinsic - it
refers to sounding experiences outside the work. But extrinsic
links also involve a wide range of real and imagined non-sounding
phenomena. Thus source bonding is part of a more comprehensive
representational fabric which I shall refer to as the extrinsic
matrix. The word "bonding" evokes a binding engagement and kinship
between listener, musical context, and source-cause searching which
i s a spontaneous activity for most listeners. However, the wider
extrinsic matrix is a less concrete, more inventive and more
perishable medium of exchange between work and listener. I can only
indicate very generally the content of the extrinsic matrix in this
paper. Timbre is concerned with the temporal unfolding and shaping
of sound spectra, in other words with spectromorphology. One
concern of spectromorphology is motion and growth processes, which
are not exclusively or even primarily sonic phenomena. Energy,
which is inherent in spectral motion, belongs both to sounding and
non-sounding experience; it is linked not only to motion in general
but to human gesture, whose sounding manifestations are implicated
in the causality of source bonding. Motion, growth and energy can
be regarded as having a sonic reality but they can also be
interpreted metaphorically and symbolically.
Since the notion of source is too restrictive we must invoke a
more abstract concept of timbre which can include the source. My
definition therefore becomes
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a general, sonic physiognomy whose spectromorphological ensemble
permits the attribution of an identity.
We are going to have to delve into this spectromorphological
ensemble, but first we must go more deeply into the contextual
environment which establishes the conditions for identification.
That means returning to the norms established through instrumental
source-cause.
Source-cause Texture
Robert Cogan (1984) sums up the significance and scope of
context for instru- mental identity:
" . . . the essential sonic features of any musical instrument
are not finally to be discovered either in the practice room or in
the anechoic chamber, or even in the most sophisticated statistical
analyses of instrumental sound isolated in those places. Rather,
the essential sonic features of any musical instrument are to be
found in the sum total of its structural sonic contributions to
musical contexts. These features will be revealed by analyzing the
functions and relations of these contexts and of the instruments in
creating them." (p. 185)
The identity of the instrument is exposed through our experience
of what I shall call source-cause levels. In this instance let us
say that the source is a violin, and that the cause is therefore
specific types of gestural action of a violinist. The lowest
source-cause level is the imminent level - the ongoing, intrinsic
musical context where we encounter the instrument. Through the
unfolding of the musical style we become aware of registration -
the articulation and play of note-objects and their chaining in
phrases over a continuum of registers. The second level is the
cumulative level, which reaches back to include our previous
experiences of violin-sources in the hands of other
violinist-causes who articulate both the same music and other
genres and styles. I recognise that at both the imminent and
cumulative levels the violin may be associated with an accompanying
or collab- orating source-cause. The third level, the extended
level, includes ensemble contexts and extends the source-cause base
to include the immediate family of stringed instrument-sources. The
final level, the dispersed level, spreads over the widest possible
range of source- cause to include all bowed and plucked
instruments, for example viols and rebecs and the instruments of
other cultures. The four levels create a potentially enormous
reference field whose totality I shall call source-cause texture.
Its content encompasses our total, long-term experience of imminent
registrations, possibly in many musics, across space and time. The
idea of source-cause texture is all the more pertinent today when
through recordings we have listening access to a vast
cross-cultural source- cause repertory. In passing we should note
that both mixed and acousmatic electroacoustic works tap existing
dispersed levels in order to expand traditional instrumental
source-cause.
In electroacoustic music as a whole, however, we do not find
such a definable, hierarchical basis for establishing the
source-cause aspect of timbral identity. Take
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Defining Timbre - Refining Timbre 39
water as an example of an identifiable source. There may be a
cause - water activity can appear to be self-activated or can be
activated by human or other types of intervention, as in the
splash, for example. In a musical work, water, like any sounding
source, can exist on both the imminent and cumulative levels. But
the extended and dispersed levels cannot be identified because we
cannot establish any musical repertory beyond the cumulative level.
Our water is not a source- cause in the traditional, instrumental
sense - it does not, for example, function in stabilised ensembles.
However, it can be extended or dispersed beyond the cumulative
level by referring outside musical works to the extrinsic matrix.
In instrumental music source-cause texture provides a solid,
cultural base. In electroacoustic music, as far as commonly
identifiable non-instrumental source- causes are concerned, we
might say that an equivalent base exists because the sounding area
of the extrinsic matrix can provide a substitute for the extended
and dispersed levels of source-cause texture, even if we cannot pin
down specific levels shared by all non-instrumental source-causes.
In other words we have many experiences of water sounds beyond the
cumulative level, in nature and in culture; we can all clearly
relate to expansive shifts into the extrinsic matrix in the case of
many environmental sounds, and also to other source-causes such as
hitting, scraping or rubbing solid materials. We might say,
therefore, that in the case of real source-causes, registration at
the imminent level has a signifcant higher-level cultural
basis.
Where source-causes are inferred, imagined or non-existent the
shift to the extrinsic matrix also occurs beyond the cumulative
level, but the emphasis will lean more in favour of the
non-sounding area. When the non-sounding area is entered we are no
longer on secure common ground because source bonding is no longer
operable: we cannot identify real sources and causes.
Spectromorphological attributes and ideas then evoke and suggest
non-sounding substitutes for the extended and dispersed levels,
whether these be to do with motion, types of behaviour, spatial
experience, energetic phenomena, psychological tensions, and so on.
I believe that such ideas, intangible as they might be, are a
significant means of articulating that necessary, shared,
higher-level cultural basis for a music with non-existent
source-causes.
Lest anyone should think that the extrinsic matrix is irrelevant
to instrumental source-cause - that instrumental music refers only
to itself - it needs to be underlined that behind the causality of
instrumental gesture lies both a broader experience of the
physicality of gesture and its proprioceptive tensions, and a
deeper, psychological experience of gesture. In instrumental music
human-bonded source-cause texture represents these primal levels of
gesture found in the extrinsic matrix. In electroacoustic music
where source-cause links are severed, access t6 any deeper, primal,
tensile level is not mediated by source-cause texture. That is what
makes such types of acousmatic music difficult for many to grasp.
In a certain physical sense there is nothing to grasp -
source-cause texture has evaporated.
However, neither the imminent not the cumulative levels in
electroacoustic music can be considered equivalents of instrumental
music. At the cumulative level of electroacoustic works, the
diversity of source-cause and the varieties of spectromorphological
physiognomy are vast. Instrumental music cannot be considered
comparable. Even the imminent level of individual electroacoustic
works is concerned with the registration of multiple
spectromorphologies many of which may be unique to a single work.
It is to the imminent level, to the intrinsic
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spectromorphology of the musical work that we must now turn in
the search for the identity of timbre, but before confronting this
problem I must discuss pitch in electroacoustic music.
The Timbre of Pitch - the Pitch of Timbre
The basis for the traditional notion of timbre relies on the
conceptual possibility of separating pitch from timbre. The
heritage of music writing has tended to encourage abstract
approaches to pitch which, at worst, becomes alienated from the
spectromorphologies responsible for creating and shaping it. Once
tonality and intervallic pitch are no longer regarded as the
predominant carriers of musical messages, pitch and timbre can
cohabit in a spectromorphological music where the ear has
opportunities for shifting in and out of pitch values. In
electroacoustic music we are concerned not only with the received
notion of the timbre of pitch but also the pitch within timbre, and
moreover, timbre without pitch. Pitch is present even when not
perceived. Perhaps it is resting, hidden deep in a
spectromorphology, awaiting possible attention, a moment when, for
example, the context might change so that perceptual focus becomes
directed towards what was a sleeping attribute. The salience of
pitch therefore becomes contextual in electroacoustic music. Timbre
rather than being that part of the sound which is not pitch,
encompasses the inherent qualities of the whole sound. Perceived
pitch is one of these inherent qualities, but the term "timbre"
cannot alone be expected to shoulder the burden for all the others.
Once split open, the timbre complex is not a package of distinctly
separable parameters, but a field of interactive behaviour, played
out in the relations between spectral space and temporal change.
Under such conditions does not the concept of timbre become so
general as to be meaningless?
Registration
If timbral identity in electroacoustic music is so heavily
reliant on the single imminent level then registration within the
work is the key. It is registration which enables us to connect to
source-cause texture and to the extrinsic matrix. Registration in
instrumental music I defined as "the articulation and play of note
objects and their chaining in phrases over a continuum of
registers." Registration in electroacoustic music cannot be so
systematic because there is no consistent low-level note-object, no
consistent phraseological practice, nor is there the same registral
continuum. If there is no underlying, pitch-base system shared by
spectromorphologies then registration can no longer be controlled
by the exposi- tion of pitch registers, but instead becomes
concerned with variable spectromor- phological attributes. With
such an all-embracing openness we are in danger of losing our way,
as registration starts to permeate the very nature of the musical
discourse perhaps to the point of becoming synonymous with it.
Robert Cogan (1984) outlines the general requirements of
registration:
"'To be musically and sonically significant, a sonic element
must reveal itself in a musical context. Indeed it requires not
only a presence but, usually, reiteration and amplification (used
here in the structural sense). Some phonic
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Defining Timbre - Refining Timbre 41
properties are so weakly (or accidentally) present in an
instrumental sound and so unamplified in a given context that they
disappear in the context or do not, at any rate characterize it.
They do not function in the particular context." (p. 146)
We have therefore to discriminate the incidental from the
functional, to decide which spectromorphologcial attributes matter,
and we have to discover this anew in the imminent level of each
electroacoustic work. A pair of related variables underpins our
attempts at determining identities:
1. the coherence and strength of spectromorphological identity;
2. the duration needed to establish existence and expose
registration.
Existence
There is no standard duration for establishing existence. In
electroacoustic music quite long evolution times may be needed to
establish existence and impose identity. Take an active water
texture as an example. Although we may recognise immediately that
it is water it takes longer to determine what we might refer to as
its inner "timbral" detail because it is not the odd globule but
textural behaviour which establishes its imminent identity, for
example its resonances, noise content, and pitch-streams or
contours. Identifying a crude source-cause is one thing;
penetrating its behavioural detail is another. If such a texture
were not a recognisable source-cause then extended duration could
be even more important. With this water texture the establishing of
existence and the evolution of its registration are inseparable,
and the attributes which we discover may prove to be significant or
not as the imminent level proceeds.
Textural behaviour can therefore be an example of what I shall
call a registration generator - an ongoing context whose continuity
is necessary to establish existence and registration. Continuous
evolution and continuous transformation can also be considered
registration generators. They can be ongoing contexts where there
is no border between existing and transforming, existing and
evolving. In other words, change becomes fundamental to existence
and registration: we apprehend identity as the consequence of
change.
There are types of spectromorphology whose existence can only be
established after a certain evolution time because the completion
or partial completion of a pattern is integral to identity. Motions
based on rotation are examples of spectromorphologies whose timbre
(if that is the right word) is embodied in the spectral changes
over at least one rotation-cycle. This is an instance of a
registration pattern where it becomes impossible, or at least
perceptually implau- sible, to distinguish between what might be
considered its timbral matter on the one hand and its short-term
evolution on the other.
Coherence
The notions of existence and registration imply a certain
coherence, otherwise identity would not be feasible. Coherence in
the case of instruments is usually
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associated with spectral fusion, which in turn is associated
with harmonicity. Jean-Claude Risset (1991) considers fusion a
necessary timbral property: 2
"The notion of timbre implies fusion; it corresponds to the
sound quality of an ensemble of components integrated in an
auditive entity which is assignable to a single source, whether
real or virtual." (p. 257)
Since fusion is so often closely aligned with harmonicity, and
since I find it too rigid a word, I prefer the term "'integration."
That also allows us to talk of an integration-disintegration
continuum.
From a theoretical point-of-view integration/disintegration
possesses a spectral and a morphological dimension - spectral space
and its internal distribution on the one hand, and shaping over
time on the other. Integration means that within a sonic
physiognomy the distribution of spectral components in spectral
space, and their behaviour over time should not be such that a
component or sub-group of components can be perceived as an
independent entity. Certainly a fairly high degree of integration
is necessary if something called timbral identity is to be
established, but where are the borders between tight fusion, a
looser interdepen- dence, and a dissolution towards independence?
When is a timbre a timbre and when is it a collection of timbres?
When does the physiognomy crack?
The course of even a relatively short spectromorphology can
travel between integration and disintegration. For example, using
the unifying weapon of the attack phase I can impose a causal
coherence on the onset of a spectromorphology; as it continues I
can intervene in the temporal evolution of the spectral components,
perhaps refocusing the spectral space by weighting attention
towards certain components, perhaps separating some out, perhaps
clearing gaps in spectral space, perhaps drawing attention to
intervallic pitch, perhaps secreting in new components. In other
words new objects, strands or gestures can emerge in the
multi-level play of hierarchies as they expand and contract in the
course of electroacoustic musical discourse. We must also not
forget that aural acuity, attention, and the volition of focus are
crucial protagonists in this unveiling of identites, particularly
in contexts of fleeting ephemera.
It seems that as long as a spectromorphology is perceived as a
coherent entity, then "timbre" is a word we might use to
encapsulate its global physiognomy. This is the equivalent of
saying it has an identity, or that it has a source-cause since
source-cause implies coherence. But the problem is to identify
coherence! Playing with integration and disintegration is at the
very heart of electroacoustic musical discourse, a discourse which
becomes spectromorphology itself once the timbre complex is split
open, a discourse where the notion of timbre can at one moment
perhaps be grasped, but at the next it evaporates.
Discourse Stability and Variability
This supposedly coherent identity which might be called timbre
is not necessarily an entity which can be prised apart from the
sounding context. A timbre may be
2 "La notion de timbre implique la fusion; eUe correspond ~ la
qualit~ sonore d'un ensemble de composantes int~gr~es en une entit~
auditive et assign6es ~ une rhyme source sonore r~eUe ou
virtuelle."
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Defining Timbre - Refining Timbre 43
a discrete object which can be separated out from its context,
but it can also be a continuity which is intertwined or blurred
with other continuities or whose start and end cannot be discerned.
We can therefore talk about the concept of timbral level, which
concerns the relationship between two continua.
1. duration: short-term entity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
longer term evolution 2. separability: discrete object . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . continuing context
The continuing context could even encompass the whole work if
the work is itself a continuity, or if we could ascribe a general
timbral ethos to the work as a whole - a timbre of timbres if you
like.
Timbral level in traditional note-based music is quite simple.
The note is the lowest level and it is articulated by an
instrumental source. Form develops from note articulations. In
electroacoustic music continuing contexts resist and deny low-level
segmentation. Thus once timbral level ceases to be clearcut we
cannot separate timbre and discourse: tirnbral attributes become
woven into the spectro- morphological fabric.
But let us assume that in the opening stages of the imminent
level coherent existences have been established, whether through
the persistence of existence, through separability, through
source-cause coherence, or through limited registra- tion. Let us
also assume that discourse is about maintaining and developing some
of these identities, and that we wish our transformed identities to
show their roots. What next?
Transformational discourse
I recognise two approaches to musical discourse which concern
the application of those attributes associated with timbre. The
first is transformational discourse, where an identity is
transformed wh{le retaining significant vestiges of its roots (i.e.
an identity-base in the imminent level, or a strong extrinsic
identity). To achieve this, certain attributes must remain stable
while others vary. Digital synthesis and treatment techniques
permit detailed and subtle spectromorphological intervention
allowing us to create and transform what were timbre's
multidimensional attributes. Spectromorphologies therefore become
malleable, and the composer has to decide how to retain stability.
The stability/variability relationship is a difficult area of
derision-making related to the coherence of discourse. There is so
much choice, and in transformational discourse there are many ways
of achieving and losing this equilibrium. Here are a few examples
of prevalent techniques:
1. stretching or contracting in time which does not threaten too
much the aural, evolutionary integration of spectral components.
Compress too much and you destroy identity; stretch too much and
you destroy, for example, attack identity.
2. changes in spectral density by thickening, or by spreading in
spectral space, which are perceived as addition - a growth
process.
3. changes in spectral weighting (e.g. brighter, or emphasizing
internal intervallic pitch) without altering the essential content
(i.e. frequency spacing) of the spectral envelope.
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4. variation in or reshaping of a morphology (for example, the
attack impact) in such a way that it does not affect the identity
of the continuing body of a spectromorphology. This implies either
that (a) the sound is a strong spectromorphological type well known
through
extrinsic experience (e.g. a bell, the voice); or (b) that the
base-spectromorphology has been previously announced and
that if this was some time previously then it was striking
enough in context for relevant features to be memorable; if the
base- spectromorphology is less memorable it would need to be
relatively contiguous to the present event.
Of course if a morphological feature (e.g. the attack) is the
dominant, identifying determinant then interference can mean a
change of identity: source-cause itself is perceived to be
transformed, and bonding play is involved.
Although in these four examples I am assuming the retention of
identity, and although the spectromorphological features mentioned
are commonly attributed to timbral multidimensionality that does
not mean that we would necessarily choose the word "timbre" to
describe these types of relations in transformational
discourse.
I note in passing that memorability and contiguity are two
important tools of discourse. It is undoubtedly true that pitch
relations and source-causes are the most easily memorable sonic
phenomena, and that the problem with multiple spectromorphological
attributes is that we do not know which ones are to be relevant in
the discourse. This is why electroacoustic music which avoids pitch
phenomena and strong source-cause references will be most
frequently concerned with contiguous relationships. Continuing
textural contexts and continuous transformation are prime examples
of contiguous development. Non-contiguous discourse can only be
highly developed within the precise and detailed memora- bility of
culturally imbedded pitch and rhythmic systems. In my opinion,
expecting to apply the criteria of pitch/rhythm-based discourse to
discourses which instead exploit the disparate attributes of
spectromorphological multidimensionality, is misguided.
Typological discourse
The second type of discourse is typological discourse.
Identities are recognised as sharing timbral qualities but are not
regarded as being descendants of the same imminent identity - they
do not possess a common identity-base. Typological discourse is
associative. While each imminent level will present different mani-
festations of a timbral type, there is also a cumulative level
which reaches across works. The larger groupings of the timbres of
typological discourse can be called generic timbres.
Electroacoustic music has made possible the expansion and
development of certain generic timbres which have become its
idiomatic property.
The timbres of noise are a particularly striking example. While
noise is present in instrumental and vocal timbre it only really
takes off as a timbral type once it meets up with the
electroacoustic medium. One prevalent type is granular noise.
Granular noise is textured impulses of varying consistencies and
resolutions ranging from roughness through granularity to grit,
with an internal behaviour
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which, while showing varying degrees of regularity or
irregularity, remains a coherent identity. Beyond roughness
granular noise smooths out, and somewhere beyond grit the texture
starts to fragment. Granular noise has strong source-cause bondlngs
which are extremely wide- ranging - sea, water in general, wind,
foliage (living or dried), fracturing materials (wood, stone),
motions of friction, unvoiced vocal behaviours, certain types of
breathing and fluid congestion, types of mechanical noise, static
interference. What category of sonic phenomenon is not implicated?
It is undoubtedly true that these source-cause bondings, whether
blatant or subliminal, account for the popularity of granular noise
in that they can initiate prolific bonding play in musical
discourse particularly in their inherent ability to draw together
humanity, nature and the elements. Note that there is a powerful
spatial dimension involved, at once personal and environmental.
Note also granular noise's tensile properties: it can be extremely
relaxing or penetrat- ingly tense. While it is commonly regarded as
non-pitched we can say that the pitch of timbre can be activated in
typological discourse. We should also not forget that resonance can
be part of granular noise. Resonance embodies the latent pitch
inside or behind granular noise, which can become a partner in the
surrounding discourse. The most significant aspect of noise
typologies is that they satisfy the most important criterion of all
- they already lie within our cultural experience.
The discourse function of granular noise can be a decorative or
subordinate strand or trace injected into a spectromorphology, or
it can be at centre stage. As far as timbral level is concerned
granular noise is not a discrete phenomenon but a texture where
higher level patternings are the structuring aspects of its
physiognomy. No doubt granular noise, if studied in more detail
would break down into sub-categories - it is too unwieldy as it
is.
Inharmonicity is another generic timbre, and a vexing one
because of its disintegrative tendencies. This makes it difficult
to pin down. At the very least inharmonicity has initiated a
different attitude towards intervallic pitch, provoking spectral
spaces where we hear fixed pitches but where the intervals created
are not necessarily bearers of intervallic pitch functions.
Inharmonicity has different imminent physiognomies related more to
higher-level groupings in musical contexts than to individual
objects. Who, for example, would confuse the style of inharmonicity
of Chowning with that of Risset? But I do not yet know of any
secure method of categorising inharmonicities in such a way as to
overcome the unhelpful negativity of the term.
I hope I can safely say that with generic timbres the term
"timbre" is appropriate. We can intuitively apprehend the
contextual conditions determining existence, registration,
coherence, and source-cause texture at the imminent and cumulative
levels, spreading to the extrinsic matrix at the extended and
dispersed levels.
Transformational and typological discourse are not mutually
exclusive, and moreover, tipping the scales either way can be a
question of listening choice and listening experience - listening
experience is variable and subjective. The difference between them
is really a question of whether identities are more or less
specific - the less specific the identities, the more typological
the discourse becomes. And they can exist together. For example, a
specific event subject to transformations can also be a bearer of
generic timbre. In fact I recognise six interactive types of
eIectroacoustic discourse. The first three are primarily concerned
with identities and how we interpret them. They are
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source-cause discourse, which is concerned with the bonding play
of specific or inferred sounding identities.
transformational discourse typological discourse
The second three discourses are concerned with relations among
identities. They are:
behavioural discourse - the changing states of identifies'
cohabition/conflict and dominance/subordination;
motion discourse - the relations of types of motion and growth
and their directional tendencies;
tensile discourse - how the previous five discourses together
create formal tensions.
Two Indigenous Timbres of Timbres
Before concluding I need to mention two types of timbre
indigenous to electroacoustic music. The first is processing
timbre. Synthesis methods and treatment processes often impose
their own timbral flavour on musical contexts, and indeed whole
works. The sounds of what might normally be regarded as different
source-causes and spectromorphologies appear to be coated in the
same timbral veneer. At a lower level the detailed diagnosis of
particular processing timbres is likely to be the pastime of
specialists - composers, researchers, technologists - rather than
other listeners. Individual processing timbres hover between
innovation, when they are exciting to behold, fashion, when usage
spreads, and clichG when they have been flagellated to the point of
collapse. Who can predict and delineate the border between
excitement and torpor? The detection of technological source-cause
can be an undesirable interference in the musical exchange between
composer and listener. The composer's inventive skill is the only
panacea. Higher level veneers are often unnoticed by the composer,
who has been so immersed in spectromorphological detail, but they
are easily picked up by other listeners, whose aural approach is
always more global.
Processing timbres are important in that they impart a
characteristic sound to electroacoustic music. Electroacoustic
music has its timbres, which can have a neutralising effect on
sonic communication.
The second indigenous timbre of timbres is the loudspeaker. Our
dependency is total. Loudspeakers possess an inherent spectral
weighting which affects the hearing and the composition of musical
timbre, and is itself a timbre. While on the one hand we rely on
timbral invariance for studio monitoring or home listening, we have
to remember that the loudspeaker is a variant. We harness
comparative fimbral variance to excellent effect in the
multi-speaker diffusion systems. Boulez (1987) called the
loudspeaker "'a great anonymous pulveriser of sound that does not
measure up to the means which have been developed to create a new
sonic world." (p. 170) Even if this was true in 1985 (when he spoke
these words) it is no longer the case . . . . if you have enough
money. We still need constantly to be aware of how crucial the
loudspeaker is for the electroacoustic arts and how its fimbral
collusion with global processing timbres can indeed rob the real
timbres of their individual physiognomy.
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Defining Timbre - Refining Timbre 47
Concluding remarks
I have been concerned not with the acoustic nature of timbre,
nor even, truthfully speaking, with its psychoacoustic properties,
but with its apprehension, identity and functions in musical
contexts from the listener's point of view. Above all, the use of
the label "timbre" is a signifier that we have identified
spectromorpholog- ical, physiognomic attributes to which we can
ascribe meaning. We not only recognise and identify qualities but
we identify with them. The concept of timbre, then, evokes both
real and symbolic links between our identity and sonic identity,
and in electroacoustic music between our identity and that of the
wide-open sounding and non-sounding world outside the music.
When source-cause slips into hiding, identity becomes
problematic, even impossible. Timbral qualities become phantoms and
phantasms. Personalised visions during the imminent level suggest
circuitous, labyrinthine trails to wider generic identities and to
the extrinsic matrix. The spectromorphological traces which inspire
such trail-finding can no longer be parcelled up in generalised
physiognomic packages. Timbre becomes the timbre complex, and the
timbre complex splits open to reveal disparate lives: the timbral
nucleus dissolves, seeping through musical discourse. In struggling
to maintain a timbral essence we are indeed obliged to penetrate
the very nature of musical discourse.
Composing with timbre, composing within timbre, means
confronting and enjoying its dissolution. This can only really be
fully pursued in an acousmatic electroacoustic music. In contrast,
adventurous contemporary instrumental music, and works which mix
instruments with an acousmatic element, are rooted in the umbilical
security of instrumental source-cause coherence and directly appre-
hended sound-making gesture. This equates not with a burning desire
to explore timbre, but with a hesitant reserve about cutting loose
in order to pursue a freer exploration. There is no reason why the
traditional notion of timbre should fade away. A notion of musical
timbre will always exist alongside its dissolved attributes. In
keeping with this ambivalence I can summarise this discourse in six
words:
Timbre is dead. Long live timbre.
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